The Scam

Philip R. Haley

7902 Denham Chase Avenue
Denham Springs, LA  70726
(225) 665-0617

This is one story of many I experienced while a Japanese POW. The events took place while I was working in the MKK (tool & dye) factory. I was working on a detail with a sergeant and three other Americans when we noticed a shed full of metal shavings, a waste product from the factory’s lathes. The sergeant suggested that it might be feasible to recover the excess oil from the shavings if we had a boiler. He thought that the Japs might actually go for the idea. He talked to the Jap in charge of our detail, who was receptive and in turn spoke with his superiors and they all bought our plan. We made a pilot project boiler out of a 55-gallon drum. We were also able to procure some railroad tracks that we laid down the inside of our shed outward from the makeshift boiler. We put up an overhead track and runner over the shavings with a rope and pulley with tongs on the end of the rope to pick up the loose material. We got all of these materials with the Japs’ help. What we really needed was a bailer to press the shavings into a usable bail. They had one that would work in the factory and they tried unsuccessfully to get it for us. Another POW and I went into the factory and got the bailer and left with it. No one said anything. Now the whole thing was set up. 

Mukden Prison Camp

 We used the tongs to pick up the shavings and run them down that rail to the bailing machine where they were pressed together into a bail. Then we would push them on a cart on the rails to the boiler. We used steam made by the boiler to get the oil from the shavings. Everything worked fine. The only problem was that we got very little oil (maybe a couple of ounces from each large bail.) The sergeant came up with another idea to solve our dilemma. The oil storage shed was about 100 yards away from where we were working. He went and talked to the Americans working over there and they agreed to supply us with oil. We acquired about 1/4 of a 55-gallon drum of oil from the storage area and brought it over to our own shed. When the Japs saw this, they were very excited. They instructed us to take the drum to the oil storage shed when it was full. We would get a new drum that looked slightly different each time. We would show the Japs our oil production about twice per week. This went on about a month.

 The Japs told us that we were doing such a good job recovering oil, that they knew where they could get a big boiler and they would construct a new large brick building for it to go in and start up a full-scale operation. Boy, we were really in a mess then! We knew that if the Japs found us out, we would be shot. There was nothing we could do. I visualized myself being lined up with the other four and being shot by a Japanese firing squad.

 The Japs began building the new building as planned. About a month passed and thankfully, no large boiler arrived. About this time, the Japs came and told us that they would not be able to get the boiler; it had already been used somewhere else. You talk about five happy Americans! I believe that this is just one of the many examples of God’s protecting hand while I was a POW that saved me from certain death. This happened nearly 60 years ago, and I do not remember the names of the others who were with me.